it's ok to like problematic content
@vahnj I'm leery of the blanket "it's okay to like problematic content." Maybe "it's okay to engage with problematic content." Outright liking stuff _because_ of its problematic nature is probably still an issue, but we're smart people and we should be able to talk about this. It's also okay to not analyze every waking moment of one's life for heterodoxy.
Also, remember that "problematic" begs questions like "for whomst?" and "howso?" It's not a blanket prohibition on engagement. #AITDMN
@vahnj Also, you are a goodbold and all of this is purely my own thoughts offered to the void. I'm not here to tell anybody else how to walk their path. I just want to help people find better tools to walk their own paths, wherever those go.
@literorrery the intent is "liking things despite their problematic content", rather than "liking things for their problematic content"
for instance: game of thrones has a lot of bullshit in it that's terrible, but i love the show and care about a lot of the characters. idk if i'll ever finish watching the show or not but i sure will end up reading the last book
@literorrery the point of my post though is that you don't *have* to further the conversation, either. you can just enjoy the content and move on. maybe you'll further the conversation later, or you'll cover tracks that have already been covered, who knows
@vahnj I think that's fair too. I'm personally a little less comfortable with that, if only because "just enjoying it" feels like an opportunity lost to improve things, but that's me, and I accept that I'm probably the corner case here. I'm certainly not going to criticize somebody not wanting to engage. If I see a pattern of refusal to engage, I may ask questions, but I don't think there's a hard-and-fast "thou shalt eat this much Discourse Or Else."
content processing
@literorrery yea that's the point. folks don't owe anyone a direct consequence to learn from consuming content, sometimes you just want something to relax and not worry about, and sometimes that stuff ends up being problematic.
i think it's still good to process the content you consume, but unless an author who has shitty views is actively political (such as touting Nazi epithets) there's not really any reason to have to deconstruct the things you watch- that's work.
content processing
@vahnj @literorrery Burnout is very much a thing... It's a tough thing to balance, because there's the whole 'privilege means you can escape it where others can't', but we all have struggles and this is all hard stuff.
I think it's important we cultivate the idea that art isn't a straightforward thing, and that the content we consume doesn't define us, but rather what parts of it we internalize and accept as truth.
content processing
@BigFatFae @literorrery @vahnj
🙌 'privilege means you can escape it where others can't' 🙌
Say it again for the people at the back!
@vahnj See, I think that's totally fine. There's also a huge gulf between "the content of the show" and "the content of the books." And there's "the view of the author" versus "the view of the characters" versus "the view of the reader." Just saying "this is problematic" doesn't further the conversation about what the problem is and what to _do_ about it.